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Under review

PLAYER POLL: How often do you utilize Oxygen Filled Canisters during a playthrough and how many Canisters do you typically have in your inventory/storage?

Tyler Owen (Lead Developer) 6 years ago updated by MarsWalker 6 years ago 13

Looking for feedback on canisters and how they might be affected by some simple changes I'm considering. Let me know how you use them.

I use them while doing EVA if I need them, which usually do. I take 3 or 4 with me depending on how far I'm going and especially if I'm still looking for other habs. If I'm just going on a small jaunt I take that many with me anyway, just in case something gets me sidetracked.

Another question. Do you ever craft them? Or do you just use ones that you find?

Oh no, I've crafted tons of them, lol. As soon as I'm down to only 3 in my possession, which can be quite often.

Sorry, I should have been more specific. Do you craft the empty ones? Or do you just refill empty ones that you've found?

I just use the ones I've found I guess. I didn't know we got the empties back and it's something I've always wondered about too. Where do the empty tanks go? If in my inventory then I use whatever I have on me when I'm crafting. I usually have a few in storage at the habs and I'll get those if I don't have any in my inventory.

Yeah, the empty tank is returned to your inventory after you use a filled tank. I will be introducing a chance for oxygen filled containers to break after using them in order to encourage crafting new ones. Right now I think there are just too many available tanks by searching supply caches that you never need to craft new ones.

Good idea. Another thing that I was thinking that there's way too much of is, weak glue, lol.

I carry about 5-6 for my longer exploration trips (typically up to 2 sols), and when there's excess oxygen in the hab,  I fill up spare ones. Depending on various circumstances, I'd say I'm actively using maybe 10-12 of them, half with me, half stored at my primary habitat. When the empty ones pile up on me, I start leaving a few filled ones at the previous habs as portable emergency reserve.


I never crafted empty ones, since I usually find way more empty/filled ones than I ever need. However, some excess may be of use as material source for salvaging.


I'm not quite sold on the breaking mechanism, unless they get turned into a not useable, but salvageable "broken" version to rcelaim some of the material content for crafting. And I think it would make more sense if they broke when being filled, not when being emptied; as filling puts more stress on them, so that's when it would be more likely to find out that one has failed in some way and needs to be discarded.


If we're at them, maybe the weight, both filled and empty, could be slightly reduced? I have no idea what would be the mass of the oxygen that they can hold (it could be guesstimated, although that also depends on the pressure/temperature which si not specified) and how strong they would need to be to hold it at that unknown pressure, but I'd suspect they'd be made of some lightweight composite material.

Breaking them will result in a "Broken Canister" which can be salvaged for reduced materials. The chance of breaking them on use was my way of making it less punishing because you wouldn't lose the oxygen in the tank, but at the same time it's also more "dramatic" because it would happen while you're on an EVA instead of annoying if it happened during crafting. I feel like if it happened during crafting you would just be like, "ugh, okay, guess I'll just craft a new one right now". That was my thought process anyway.

Yes, more jeopardy is what is needed. I think of The Long Dark and how it takes forever to get enough material to craft warm fur clothes and then how very long it takes to craft these (you usually need to sleep in between this time for some things) and how your sewing equipment can break and be destroyed multiple times during the process. And then, you can lose the whole lot of it if you're wearing it during a surprise bear attack. There are of course, different levels of difficulty though. In easy, one need not worry about bear attacks, or wolves or moose. But, who wants to play on easy?

i always take 4-5 on an eva. Never craft new ones.

Wow, am I the only one who crafts them? I can never find enough of them for the walking and exploring I do.